When thinking about our cores, so many people don’t realize that its not just our backs but our entire trunk that needs to be worked. This is because both our back muscles and abdominal muscles have a lot of weight to hold. How so? The trunk of our body helps us stay balanced in addition to other contributing factors. So having a weak core can contribute to having bad balance and overall control of our muscles and other workout.
The first step is knowing all about the abdominals and the regions of ab muscles that you’ll want to work. So let’s take a look at the abdominal muscles and the different exercises to complete so that we can get the best ab workouts for bodybuilding or any other fitness related goals.
The 5 Main Muscles of the Abdomen
There are five muscle groups currently associated with the abdominals. Those five areas include the external and internal obliques, the pyramidalis, the rectus abdominis, and the transverse abdominis.
Pyramidalis
The pyramidalis is a vertical muscle that is fairly small and shaped like a triangle. It’s what helps to maintain needed pressure in your abdomen and is located in your lower pelvic area. One of the best ways to exercise this specific muscle is to use a pullup bar.
While you may be wondering how a pull up bar can possibly work this lower abdominal muscle it’s actually quite simple and is an ab workout for bodybuilding as well as for a novice fitness enthusiast. The exercise is hanging leg raises.
Hanging Leg Raises – How to:
To perform hanging leg raises, you’ll need access to a pull up bar. You’ll then hang from the pull up bar with your palms facing forward. Once in this position you’ll bend your knees while raising them toward the ceiling. Remember, you’ll want to make sure that you’re engaging your abdominal muscles. There are also two variations of this exercise that you can do. You can either bring your knees to waist height. Or you can raise them even higher towards your chest. Something to remember is that this isn’t a swinging contest and rather than using momentum from swinging, you’ll really want to pay attention to form and lifting with the correct muscle groups.
Rectus Abdominis
This group of muscles come in a pair and sweep down the middle of your abdomen. They reach from your ribs down to the front of your pelvis. This is the group of muscles tasked with making sure your internal organs stay where they’re supposed to. In addition to that all important task, they’re also responsible for keeping your body stable in the process of moving around.
This is the region of your abdomen that commonly becomes a “six pack” when properly worked. So, how does one complete an ab workout for bodybuilding that works in this specific area? The truth is that there is not one specific exercise and therefore to work this area of the abdominals, you’ll want to do a combination of exercises. This may include planks, reverse crunches, regular crunches, and jack knife crunches.
Jack Knife Crunches – How to:
Most if not all of the other exercise variations are self explanatory. However, when it comes to jack knife crunches, many individuals may not know what they are or how to properly do them. So, let’s start with the basics. You’ll want to lay on your back extending your arms straight above your head and your legs out straight. Then lifting your arms and legs into a slight V-shape you raise your arms and legs at the same time bending at the knee in a crunch motion. Returning to the initial V-shape, you’ll have completed a single jack-knife crunch.
Internal & External Obliques
The external obliques and internal obliques are two pairs of muscles and are located on either side of the rectus abdominis. For the external obliques, these are found around the middle body and stretch toward the sides of your body. Their main function is to allow twisting from side to side. The internal obliques are on top of the external obliques and can be found just inside your hip bones. They also aid in twisting from side to side.
Completing side planks on each side of the body should do the trick when looking for an exercise that can cover both internal and external obliques.
Side Planks – How to:
Something to remember is that regular planks and side planks are different in that you’re not face down when doing side planks. Instead, you are literally on your side. You can do them while raised up on your elbow or you can fully extend your arm. Here’s how to do this ab workout for bodybuilding, or if you’re just looking for a good oblique exercise in general.
You’ll start by laying on your side, stacking your hips on top of one another. You’ll then lift yourself up onto your elbow or the palm of your hand, straightening your shoulders so that you’re not crunched in on yourself. You’ll raise your hips and legs up off the ground making sure to engage your core muscles and hold that form for 30 seconds or more before releasing. If you’re looking for even more of an exercise you can lower and raise your hips for a given amount of repetitions to further engage your abdominals.
Transversus Abdominis
Last but not least is the transversus abdominis. These muscles are deepest when it comes to your abdominals. Their main job is to stabilize your trunk as well as help to maintain the correct abdominal pressure. In most cases, this is the group of abdominal muscles that are forgotten which can be detrimental to the development of your abdominals.
So, to avoid this problem, a great variation of ab workouts for bodybuilding and building up this muscle is the dead bug exercise or alternating dead bug.
Alternating Dead Bug – How to:
To do the alternating dead bug ab workout it’s actually much like your standard crunch with a few notable differences. You’ll want to start laying face up with your arms extended straight towards the ceiling. Your legs will need to be raised as well in a table top position. This basically means that your legs are bent at the knees to create a 90 degree angle. Then, you’ll extend your left leg straight and forward in conjunction with extending your right arm straight back making sure both are parallel to the floor. Do not lower or touch the floor with either extremity. Instead you’ll just want to hover and bring it back to the starting position. You’ll do the same with the right leg and left arm and that will have completed a cycle.
Peptides and Defined Abdominals
Now, if you’re doing all of these different exercises and making sure to target all areas of the abdominals and still aren’t getting the results you’re looking for, you may want to consider using peptides. More specifically, tesamorelin from Paradigm Peptides. Why this specific peptide? Because tesamorelin was made for this reason. It can help you obtain the abs of your dreams. Want to learn more about it? Then click here. Of course, if you already know everything you need to know about this amazing peptide then you can buy yours here.